The other day I discussed the implications of Anthony Lampe's The Background of Professional Baseball in St. Louis, which appeared in the October 1950 issue of the Missouri Historical Society's Bulletin. One of the more interesting things Lampe wrote about was the early origin of professionalism in St. Louis, which contradicted the conventional wisdom regarding when St. Louis baseball players first started playing for pay but agreed with some of the conclusions that I've made after looking at the evidence. However, I only shared a bit of what Lampe wrote and, since he had more to say on the subject, I'd like to share some more of his fantastic article:

A few conclusions may be drawn from the 1868 season. Because of the great interest in the game, St. Louis was obviously destined to enter professional baseball at an early date; early in the season the Unions had actually been professionals, as their sole occupation was playing baseball. Secondly, Chicago emerged as the natural rival of St. Louis as the key city of the midwest, which would soon challenge them on the diamond, as Eastern clubs had already done. Thirdly, St. Louis teams lacked only a stronger managerial system to get the players in shape and keep them that way. The desire for a strong team to represent the city was present, but for some years no organizing genius appeared to take over, partly because of the incompatibility of baseball and gambling. As baseball grew, betting increased, and gamblers soon had control of the game.

After noting a anti-professional article that appeared in a St. Louis paper in 1870, he went on to write that "This article was undoubtedly printed in the local papers to cast reflections on professional ball players. Because no individual had yet come forward with the will--and the capital--to bring a professional team to St. Louis, local ball fans were anti-professional, in a sort of sour-grape attitude."

The most important piece of information in Lampe's article is his conclusion that the Union club was paying its players in the late 1860s. I agree with this conclusion and would add that the Empire club was also most likely compensating its players in some form during this period. Lampe also believed that this experiment in professionalism was a failure. He wrote that "When the [1868] season opened the Union Club had been determined to engage in no other work but that of baseball, but as the season progressed game attendance fell off, because of the poor showing of the team. Lacking financial resources, the team members were forced to find some other means of employment." The "poor showing" that he was talking about was not the overall performance of the club but rather their showing against the Eastern professional clubs that came to St. Louis in 1868 and handily defeated the best clubs in the city.

I agree that the poor showing against the Eastern professionals had a negative effect on baseball in St. Louis. However, the reason I believe this is different than the reason that Lampe believed it. Lampe wrote about the lack of a strong managerial system and the lack of a willful individual to shape professional baseball in St. Louis. I believe that St. Louis had several individuals who shaped the game during the pioneer era and could be described as strong, willful managers. Specifically, Asa Smith was a man who had an important impact on St. Louis baseball and helped evolve the game in a positive, forward manner. Smith attempted to institute a plan to put St. Louis baseball on an even footing with the best clubs in the East but this plan floundered and died after the Unions suffered defeat upon defeat at the hands of the Eastern professionals. In my opinion, it wasn't a lack of visionary management that doomed the first attempt at creating a professional baseball market in St. Louis. Rather, it was the lack of success on the field that doomed the vision. Smith wanted his Union club to compete for the national championship but they simply were not good enough to do so. He overreached and failed. This failure tarnished the idea of professionalism in St. Louis.

I don't believe that it was the loses themselves that brought about the failure of Asa Smith's grand plan but rather what the losses said about the plan. There was a conflict during the pioneer era between the forces that advocated professionalism and the fans, players and clubs that were anti-professionalism. Smith was obviously on the right side of history but that wasn't evident in 1868. He advocate what, in St. Louis, were radical changes to the baseball landscape. Paying players, enclosed ballparks, charging for games, competing against the best clubs in the nation, joining the NABBP, creating a state baseball association, and other innovations which, while common in the East, were new and radical in St. Louis. There must have been forces lined up against him that fought these changes. There must have been forces that were hoping and waiting for him to fail so that they could go back to the old way of doing things.

I believe that, in the post-war era, Smith looked at the Eastern clubs, saw how they were doing things and attempted to re-create their organization plan in St. Louis. It was an attempt to bring St. Louis into the baseball mainstream that obviously failed. But that failure was not a result of a lack of managerial vision. If anything, the failure came about because Smith did not take the final, radical step needed to compete against the Eastern powers. Like the Brown Stockings in 1875, Smith should have looked to the East and bought himself the best players he could find. Interestingly, Brown Stockings' management was made up largely of former Union club members and they took the step that Smith did not. They finally succeeded in setting up a professional baseball club in St. Louis where Smith, their former club member, had failed. But the baseball world of 1875 was not the baseball world of 1868 and what was acceptable to Brown Stockings' management was just too radical for Smith and the Union club in 1868.

Smith, in 1868, took St. Louis baseball as far as he could. He recognized that the pioneer era was ending and the professional era was being born. Smith attempted to bring the old, pioneer era St. Louis clubs into the new age and, in certain ways, succeeded in doing so. The St. Louis baseball landscape was changed for better because of the work Smith did in the late 1860s. But it would take his former club mates to create a successful professional club and it would take a German tavern owner to create a business model that made professional baseball profitable in St. Louis.

In The Background of Professional Baseball in St. Louis, published in the Missouri Historical Society Bulletin of October 1850, Anthony Lampe makes a significant claim. He writes that "The year 1868 held promise of being a great season. Certain important changes had taken place since 1867. The Union Ball Players now had no occupation other than playing baseball, though they were still not referred to as professionals." While Lampe does not cite his source for this claim, it most likely came from the Missouri Republican, whose contemporary accounts of St. Louis baseball activity in the 1860s represent his primary source for the article.

I've claimed for sometime that St. Louis baseball players were being payed by the late 1860s. This stands in contrast to most descriptions of the St. Louis pioneer era, which described the city as a bastion of pure amateurism. My claim was, up to this point, entirely based on circumstantial evidence with little contemporary source material to support it.

The most important fact that led me to conclude that St. Louis players were being paid in the late 1860s was the establishment of the Union Grounds, the first enclosed ballpark in St. Louis and the first to which admission was charged. Lampe dates this to the beginning of 1868 while Edmund Tobias, writing in 1895, stated that the new ballpark opened in May of 1867. Regardless of whether it opened in 1867 or 1868, the fact that the Union Club was charging for admission to their games is sufficient evidence to support the idea that they were paying their players. The general thinking among 19th century baseball historians is that enclosed ballparks and admission charges were an indication that players were being paid. Where you find enclosed ballparks and admission charges, you find payers being paid.

There is other evidence that supports the idea that players in St. Louis were getting paid in the late 1860s. The relationship between the Empire Club and the St. Louis Fire Department implies that Empire Club players were being compensated for their play with jobs. Some of the player movement in the late 1860s, specifically Tom Oran's movement from the Unions to the Empires and, later, to the Red Stockings, is very suspicious and can be explained if one assumes monetary enticement. There were also some hints in the national sporting press that implied that the top St. Louis clubs were paying their players. Add all of this to the fact that the top clubs were charging money to see their teams play and a picture emerges of a culture of paying players that fits with what was happening nationally.

While the weight of evidence supports the idea that pioneer players in St. Louis were being paid, one must point out that when you see claims of St. Louis amateurism during this era, the word "amateur" does not mean what it means today. Today, an amateur club is one that does not pay their players. During the pioneer era, however, it implies that the club was not competing for the national baseball championship. A club that did not pay their players but competed for the national championship was a "professional" club while a club that paid their players but did not compete for the national championship was an "amateur" club. In that sense, St. Louis baseball clubs were all amateur clubs until 1875, when the Brown Stockings and Red Stockings joined the NA.

Over time this distinction was lost and, I believe, that has confused the issue when it comes to what was happening in St. Louis as far as player compensation is concerned. The idea that St. Louis clubs were not compensating their players may have arisen from the fact that they were described as amateurs because the clubs were not competing nationally. Modern historians may have picked up on the word "amateur" and given it a meaning that it did not originally have. Complicating the issue is the fact that Tobias and Al Spink also made claims that the players were not being compensated prior to 1875.

Regardless of the work of Tobias, Spink and modern historians like William Ryczek and Jon David Cash, the weight of the evidence supports the idea that St. Louis baseball players were being paid by 1867 or 1868. Lampe, who should be considered a significant figure among baseball historians of the 20th century, believed that to be true and, while he doesn't present the evidence for his assertion, it's significant that he ties baseball professionalism in St. Louis to the opening of the Union Grounds. It's entirely possible that I find this significant because it appears that Lampe supports my thinking but it can't be denied that he is the first source that I've discovered that explicitly stated that St. Louis players were being paid during the pioneer era.

In the end, we don't need Lampe to establish the idea that the pioneer players in St. Louis were being paid. I believe that the weight of the evidence, while circumstantial, is strong enough to support this on its own. But Lampe is a very creditable historian and his piece in the October 1850 Bulletin is a significant, if largely forgotten, historical work. I'd like to run down his sources and find that contemporary source that led him to make his claim but I don't believe it's absolutely necessary. Lampe's claim can be added to the rest of the evidence and only strengthens the idea that St. Louis baseball players were being paid in the late 1860s.

Note: I've doing a bit of research on Lampe and I've discovered that he was an expert on the 19th century St. Louis Fire Department, dating back to the antebellum era. I've pointed out that there was a relationship between the Empire Club and the StLFD that implies that the players were being compensated and, given Lampe's interest in both St. Louis pioneer-era baseball and the 19th century StLFD, I find it hard to believe that he wasn't aware of this connection. To me, this lends a great deal of credence to Lampe's claim. I have a feeling that the man saw the same evidence that I saw and came to the same conclusion.